David Copperfield
almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he
had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth
pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have
any leisure for anything else.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me
and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis,
who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer
upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a
vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty’s trunks,
and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with
his forefinger to come under an archway.
‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was all right.’
I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very
profound: ‘Oh!’
‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding
confidentially. ‘It was all right.’
Again I answered, ‘Oh!’
‘You know who was willin’,’ said my friend. ‘It was Barkis, and Barkis
only.’
I nodded assent.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; ‘I’m a friend of
your’n. You made it all right, first. It’s all right.’
In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely
mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and
most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out
of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty’s calling me
away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told
her he had said it was all right.
‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty, ‘but I don’t mind that! Davy dear,
what should you think if I was to think of being married?’
‘Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do
now?’ I returned, after a little consideration.
Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as
of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and
embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love.
‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’ she asked again, when this was
over, and we were walking on.
‘If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?’
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty.
‘I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know,
Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to
see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.’
‘The sense of the dear!’ cried Peggotty. ‘What I have been thinking
of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more
independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better
heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else’s now. I don’t know
what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be
always near my pretty’s resting-place,’ said Peggotty, musing, ‘and be
able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid
not far off from my darling girl!’
We neither of us said anything for a little while.
‘But I wouldn’t so much as give it another thought,’ said Peggotty,
cheerily ‘if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in
church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my
pocket.’
‘Look at me, Peggotty,’ I replied; ‘and see if I am not really glad, and
don’t truly wish it!’ As indeed I did, with all my heart.
‘Well, my life,’ said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, ‘I have thought of
it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I’ll
think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime
we’ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain
creature,’ said Peggotty, ‘and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think
it would be my fault if I wasn’t--if I wasn’t pretty comfortable,’
said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was
so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and
again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of
Mr. Peggotty’s cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a
little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she
had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed
in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about
me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the
same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same
state of conglomeration in the same old corner.
But there was no little Em’ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where
she was.
‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent
on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; ‘she’ll be home,’
looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s
time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!’
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty.
‘I feel it more than anybody else,’ said Mrs. Gummidge; ‘I’m a lone
lorn creetur’, and she used to be a’most the only thing that didn’t go
contrary with me.’
Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to
blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so
engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: ‘The old
‘un!’ From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken
place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits.
Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful
a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt
rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em’ly was
not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found
myself strolling along the path to meet her.
A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be
Em’ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown.
But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her
dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a
curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and
pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done
such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.
Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of
turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me
to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage
before I caught her.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly.
‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I.
‘And didn’t YOU know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was going to kiss her,
but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn’t a
baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.
She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I
wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker
was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she
went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on
Mr. Peggotty’s inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide
it, and could do nothing but laugh.
‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great
hand.
‘So sh’ is! so sh’ is!’ cried Ham. ‘Mas’r Davy bor’, so sh’ is!’ and he
sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration
and delight, that made his face a burning red.
Little Em’ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than
Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by
only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my
opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be
thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured,
and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that
she captivated me more than ever.
She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after
tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss
I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so
kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his
hand like water, ‘here’s another orphan, you see, sir. And here,’ said
Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, ‘is another of
‘em, though he don’t look much like it.’
‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, shaking my head,
‘I don’t think I should FEEL much like it.’
‘Well said, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ cried Ham, in an ecstasy. ‘Hoorah! Well
said! Nor more you wouldn’t! Hor! Hor!’--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty’s
back-hander, and little Em’ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. ‘And how’s
your friend, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty to me.
‘Steerforth?’ said I.
‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. ‘I knowed it was
something in our way.’
‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed Ham, laughing.
‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And ye steer with a rudder, don’t ye? It
ain’t fur off. How is he, sir?’
‘He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.’
‘There’s a friend!’ said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. ‘There’s
a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it
ain’t a treat to look at him!’
‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said I, my heart warming with this
praise.
‘Handsome!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘He stands up to you like--like a--why I
don’t know what he don’t stand up to you like. He’s so bold!’
‘Yes! That’s just his character,’ said I. ‘He’s as brave as a lion, and
you can’t think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.’
‘And I do suppose, now,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the
smoke of his pipe, ‘that in the way of book-larning he’d take the wind
out of a’most anything.’
‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows everything. He is astonishingly
clever.’
‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his
head.
‘Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,’ said I. ‘He knows a task if he
only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give
you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘Of course
he will.’
‘He is such a speaker,’ I pursued, ‘that he can win anybody over; and I
don’t know what you’d say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘I have no
doubt of it.’
‘Then, he’s such a generous, fine, noble fellow,’ said I, quite carried
away by my favourite theme, ‘that it’s hardly possible to give him as
much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough
for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and
lower in the school than himself.’
I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little
Em’ly’s face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the
deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels,
and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily
earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all
observed her at the same time, for as I stopped, they laughed and looked
at her.
‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and would like to see him.’
Em’ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head,
and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her
stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure
I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept
away till it was nearly bedtime.
I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind